Weather too warm for Regina's outdoor rinks

The warm weather is delaying the outdoor rinks the City of Regina provides each winter.

The water won’t freeze and the forecast doesn’t show cold enough temperatures until at least Dec. 14.

The mercury needs to hit -5 C and below consistently in order for the rink set up to start. Once that happens, it will be another two weeks for all the rinks to be complete.

Ted Schaeffer, coordinator of sports facilities and special events for the city, can’t remember a time when the outdoor rinks were opened as late. Not surprisingly though, he hasn’t received many complaints.

“There really is not much you can do in the way of preparing outdoor ice facilities other than to wait until it gets colder,” he said. “It is kind of that double-edged sword, we want it cold enough to make it, but we don’t want to lose this nice weather we are having.”

The City of Regina has 60 outdoor rinks in 41 different locations.